South America Business Awards 2020

12 | South America Business Awards 2020 Best Efficient Premium Tour Operator - Peru Located in Cusco, Salkantay Trekking is an adventure trekking tour operator offering unique experiences to little known wilderness places. Following its well-deserved success in the South America Business Awards 2020, we caught up with Edgar Catunta Guillén to find out more. alkantay Trekking has been creating inspirational tailor-made vacations to suit different interests, timescales, and budgets since 2013. To start, Edgar provides a brief overview of the firm and offers more insight into some of its tours. “As a locally based tour operator in Peru, we specialise in hiking and trekking activities in Cusco. In addition to all of the main routes to Machu Picchu, we operate the Salkantay Trek, the Inca Trail, Ausangate, Rainbow Mountain, Choquequirao and Lares. The more essential aspects of our work are our staff’s passion for our culture and traditions, the care of each one of them for the quality of the service to our clients, and the consideration of always being sustainable and responsible. By keeping our groups small, we ensure of satisfaction and happiness for all participants in our activities.” Regarding the internal culture in place, good communication is key to ensuring clients receive the best possible service, which Edgar is keen to highlight. “With around one or two meetings a month, we get the opportunity to brainstorm ideas about different topics. Sometimes it seems there’s nothing to talk about, but at the end of the day, there’s always something to improve, to try, to test, to risk, to suggest or to do, while growing as a family.” Operating in the Peruvian travel industry can be a daunting challenge when you consider the competition. However, as Edgar goes on to explain, to mark itself as a leading tour operator the team adopt a thorough and client-focused approach to all its work. “Naturally, we take care of every detail with our sales and operations departments continuously asking about our guests’ satisfaction, the conformity of our staff related to the items’ disposal, and gears they require (like a Rolex).” To remain at the forefront of emerging industry developments, the firm’s motivated teammembers are key to ensuring the whole company is evolving and moving, as Edgar points out. “At Salkantay Trekking we can count on a very qualified team who all work tremendously hard. As we used to say, the company doesn’t belong to the owner; it belongs to our work-harder group.” Despite the outbreak of COVID-19, the firm has still managed to thrive during the pandemic due to the compromises of its clients. “Things have changed inside our company with many cancellations of our services and a lack of budget to work at 100%” Edgar notes. “However, thanks to our clients sacrifices we have been able to create some offers, elaborate on strategies to help, and keep them positive about their future visit to Peru. Additionally, with more time on our hands, we have identified many things to improve, more places to promote, new partners, and even new abilities within our team, so as soon as everything comes to normality, we’ll be more than ready.” Looking ahead to what the future holds, Edgar signs off by outlining the firm’s goals and also shares some of its plans for 2021 and beyond. “Moving forward, we plan to be the leading adventure travel company in South America, while continuing to explore new trekking routes in Peru.” Company: Salkantay Trekking Contact: Edgar Catunta Guillén Website: www.salkantaytrekking.com 1 | S t A ri B i A r 2 S Nov20183